Due Diligence
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How Allocators Can Optimize DDQs for Better Responses
How allocators can design due diligence questionnaires that improve manager engagement and generate cleaner, more usable data.
Dasseti
Jun 25, 2025
Allocators know that better insights come from asking better questions. But in the race to cover every angle, it's easy to overwhelm managers and dilute the very clarity you're aiming for. When time is limited and resources stretched on both sides, the quality and structure of a DDQ can be the difference between clear, actionable insight and delayed, unhelpful responses.
This blog offers practical tips to help allocators fine-tune their due diligence questionnaires. Whether you're refining pre-investment templates or scaling post-investment monitoring, these strategies can help improve response quality, reduce friction, and generate structured data you can actually use over time.
Rethinking DDQ Length: It’s Not About Asking Everything
It’s tempting to include every possible question in a DDQ – especially when investment committees, risk teams, and consultants are all asking for more transparency. But more questions don’t always equal better insight. In fact, too many questions can backfire, leading to delays, cut-and-paste answers, or vague responses that add noise instead of clarity.
The best allocators distinguish between pre-investment depth and monitoring precision. Managers generally expect a detailed pre-investment DDQ. But post-investment, shorter and more targeted questionnaires lead to better responsiveness and fewer delays.
How leading allocators tailor DDQ length without compromising on quality:
- Use a longer DDQ for pre-investment (e.g. 100–150 questions).
- Keep post-investment questionnaires lean – most allocators using Dasseti COLLECT send quarterly or semi-annual check-ins with 20–30 core questions.
- Vary length and frequency by strategy. Liquid strategies can support more frequent (e.g. quarterly) updates, while private market funds might only require annual check-ins.
Managers are more likely to engage meaningfully when the scope feels reasonable – and that leads to better data on your end.
How to Manage DDQs Across Multiple Fund Strategies
As allocations to a manager expand across multiple funds, DDQs often grow unintentionally. A single questionnaire turns into multiple versions with only minor differences – overwhelming manager IR and compliance teams with duplicative effort.
A cleaner approach is to segment your DDQs clearly into:
- Firm-level questions that apply universally across strategies (e.g. regulatory structure, leadership, cybersecurity)
- Product-specific questions that apply to individual funds or strategies
Where fund-specific data is needed across multiple products, consider staggering the requests over time or consolidating responses into one cycle per asset class. Dasseti COLLECT users, for example, often rotate their questionnaire cycles – such as covering long-only funds in one quarter and private equity strategies the next.
How Structured DDQs Make Data More Usable
Open-text responses can provide useful nuance, but they’re harder to analyze, benchmark, and compare over time. Structured questions (dropdowns, numeric fields, tables) give allocators clearer, more consistent data, especially when combined with optional comment fields for context.
A structured DDQ:
- Minimizes back-and-forth with managers
- Makes it easier to compare across time and between peers
- Produces data you can actually use
Allocators using Dasseti COLLECT can take advantage of structured fields, dropdowns, and tables – while still allowing space for narrative context where needed. The goal isn’t to remove flexibility, but to enable consistency.
This level of structure also enables smart search, response tracking, and flagging after the questionnaire is complete – turning a one-time questionnaire into a long-term data asset.
Why Allocators Need a Data-First Due Diligence Approach
This is the part most teams don’t realize until it’s too late.
You collect detailed answers, review them, and make a decision. And then a year later – when it’s time to recheck, compare, or report – you discover that none of the information was structured. It’s locked in PDFs or flat files, and you’re back to square one.
We call this the “Year 2 Problem.”
That’s why Dasseti takes a data-first approach. Every response is structured and tied to the relevant fund or firm profile, making it reusable, comparable, and ready for AI-powered analysis.
AI-first platforms may offer a slick interface, but without structured data, allocators lose visibility over time.
If you’re building a due diligence process for long-term decision-making, structured data is a necessity.
Want more tips?
Download our free guide 'Designing Smarter DDQs', put together specifically for allocators looking to reduce admin, improve response quality, and make better use of data and AI.